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Traditional Tuesday - Block 18

Flying Geese

Block 18 - Flying Geese

And here's the Traditional Flying Geese, although I messed around with color placement just to jazz it up a bit! The best part about these little Traditional blocks is getting to know my stash again! I've been digging pretty deep into it and am finding things I'd forgotten about! I've also been finding tons of solids that I'm transferring to my solids stash. I've outgrown the solids drawer already - but I digress!

I chose 4 light blue prints and 4 dark blue prints for the centers and a light blue and dark blue solid for the outer triangles.

Cutting:

From EACH of the prints, cut 1 - 3 1/2" x 2" rectangle

From the dark solid, cut 8 - 2" squares

From the light solid, cut 8 - 2" squares

I had to dig deep for some of these! I love that I have so much to draw from. Besides my almost 20 years of quilting, I have my Mom's and Grandmother's stashes plus some from my mother in law and her mother as well!

Here's the cut fabrics sorted in to individual units.

To make a flying geese unit, fold the square in half making a crease. I use this for the sewing guide - and it's quicker than drawing a line on. For larger units, I would draw the line on. Place it on the corner of the rectangle.

Sew along the line.

Trim the excess off leaving 1/4" seam allowance.

Press open, toward the triangle.

Repeat with the other side.

This is the finished unit. Repeat with all the others so you end up with 4 with light blue centers and 4 with dark blue centers.

Lay them out how you would like them to be in the finished block. I played around a bit before coming to this decision. Yours might look different! Sew into pairs, then sew the pairs into rows. Join the rows together. Press to one side at every step.

Mine is a bit too small. If this happens to you, you can either remake it (boo!) or make up the difference in the seam allowance when joining it to the sashing or add a small amount more to the sashing when we get to that part. To avoid this all together, measure each unit as you go, making sure they are all exactly 3 1/2" x 2" (I didn't do that!).